The Great West Wing Rewatch: 6.11 "Opposition Research"

Joel: I know that the show as a whole is about being the people who run the country, not about trying to be the people that run the country. Because of that, it was a good idea to start the show a year into Bartlet’s first term, skip all of the campaigning, all of the first day bumbles and go straight to Bartlet being the president. But this episode (and several of the upcoming ones) really make me wish we had gotten to see more of Bartlet’s first campaign. I know we got a few glimpses here and there through flashbacks, but for the most part, the campaign Bartlet we see is the one who’s running for a second term, with the weight of the White House and the entire Democratic party behind him. This makes me want to seek the early Bartlet campaign, the one with the falling apart headquarters. The one that was worried about running out of money. Where the whole thing was held together with sheer determination and morale boosting speeches. We get a good sampling of that with the first part of the Santos campaign, and it brings up a lot of interesting points on the ideals and ethics of campaigning (something we will get into more in future episodes) but there is that missing year or two from the Bartlet campaign that I wish we could have seen.
Just an interesting point here. Leo’s heart attack was back at the beginning of the season, and CJ’s been the new Chief of Staff for several episodes now, but this was the first episode where John Spencer didn’t appear. And he’s coming back to work next week, so despite having to step down from his post, he never really left the show here

Chris: From this point moving forward, West Wing pretty much split into two shows that will switch between focusing on the campaigns on one episode and then back to President Bartlet on the next episode and then switch back and forth for the remainder of the entire show with a couple exceptions here and there. I do enjoy this format because the Bartlet administration has seen and done it all and there's only so much left to be squeezed out in the final year of Jed's presidency. Instead of over-extending it, we'll get to see the growth of a grassroots candidacy with a candidate that has little hope of winning, a situation that mirrors the initial Bartlet campaign that we've seen glimpses of but now is our opportunity to see it from the beginning. This is just the beginning of tension between Santos and Josh as they're both strong personalities but it's one of those situations where they got each other in the race to begin with so they're going to see it through. Although it is comical how Josh is just now becoming concerned with that fact that he really doesn't know Matt Santos aside from a couple conversations beforehand. As Joey Lucas said, "you should've done this a long time ago."

A great president doesn't publicly endorse a particular candidate just yet but will offer help to the one that Josh left him for.